COMPETITION TIME.
Fancy performing one of your poems, raps or stories on the radio and shadowing me for an afternoon of paid work on my ‘Poetry with Punch’ workshops?
Then all you have to do is write around the theme of ‘My place.’
Follow the link to find out how to enter.
The competition closes on Friday the 4th of December.
Good luck! #PoetWithPunch
Seeing as though today is ‘Back to the future day’ I thought that I’d share my ‘schools of the future’ poem with you.
I was just 17 when I wrote this so please do excuse any spelling and grammar mistakes :*.
Enjoy. #PoetWithPunch.
A spontaneous ‘Poetry with Punch’ workshop occurred recently when I arrived at Montgomery primary school for my usual poetry session only to be told that their schedule had changed and that they now had PE all morning.
The teacher asked if I fancied ‘rolling with the punches’ to do a heavyweight version of our boxercise class.
Never one to back down from a fight…I mean challenge, I agreed to dust the gloves off and get to it.
We started warming the body up with some fun games that they wouldn’t necessarily notice was boxing related. (A little bit like Mr Miyagi’s ‘wax on, wax off’ routine.)
We worked on the basics of boxing;
Stance,hand positioning, footwork, rhythm and straight punches.
Once I felt that they had that down to a satisfactory level we rotated 30 children, each in 3 groups of 10, between boxers skipping, partner pad work and tag boxing.
Upon the conclusion of our martial art form, we all trotted off back upstairs to study a different type of art… poetry!
#PoetWithPunch #BrainAndBrawn #PhysicalAndMental
I was so fortunate to be contacted by the Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, about having me in for a weeks work of poetry performances, workshops and boxercise sessions.
Two weeks after agreeing dates, the flights were booked and I headed off on my 23 hour journey to the other side of the world to do what I love for a living.
I landed on the Sunday and was up for work at 5.30am Monday morning. Of course, jet-lagged and tired I still couldn’t wait to get the week underway!
So Monday started with two, one hour performances with year 9 & 6 and then finished the rest of the day by helping the year 6 students write their own poetry in preparation for their poetry slam on Wednesday.
Working with just under 300 students on the first day alone, I was buzzing for the rest of the week.
My second of five working days in Kuala Lumpur began with 3×1 hour poetry workshops with year 6 and finished with a 2 hour boxercise session with the teachers!!!
They were some big lumps… now I know why the students are so well behaved.
The year 6’s were writing around the theme of ‘It’s good to be me’ and one group decided to get all street and ghetto with their poetry/rap chorus; …
‘Mic check, one, two, three
Yo, yo, it’s good to be me!’
Tomorrow they’ll be performing their poems in front of the whole year group as part of the poetry slam!
Year 7 were my visitors for Wednesday mornings assembly. Performing & freestyling for them along with answering any questions that they had.
I asked 10 students to think of 10 words that they thought I couldn’t rhyme with so that I could attempt to perform a freestyle poem, on the spot, rhyming (or half rhyming) with the words that they had given me. They came up with;
Hypothermia
Orange
Rhythm
Onomatopoeia
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Dolphin
Hyperbole
Music
Exit &
Grotesque.
Thankfully I managed to see the poem through to the end and the freestyle lines looked a little something like this…
I think it’s fair to say that they were impressed.
The day concluded with the year 6 poetry slam final with each of the winning participants receiving the Birmingham Young Poets Laureate book – ‘My dream.’
All 14 teams were amazing and they wrote, practised and performed their poems in a very short space of time.
The winning performance can be found here…
Thursday was a national holiday in KL so I got the chance to check out the sights and hit the town.
Friday, my final day, produced a last session selfie after 4×1 hour performances to end my week in Kuala Lumpur.
I was sad to be leaving but I had an amazing day to top off a fantastic week.
One of the students even said to the head of English – ‘Sir, he’s the best speaker that we’ve ever had.’ …
Which was just ❤.
Hopefully I’ll be back again in the future but for now, thank you Garden International for inviting me to your school! Xx
A HUGE thank you must also go to Miss Siobhan, the school librarian, for looking after me all week and ensuring that my transition from class to class was smooth and easy.
It was a pleasure to meet her, as well as the rest of the staff, and I’d like to think that I’ll be back over there again in the future. X. #PoetWithPunch
Saturday the 21st I’m back at the Birmingham Library Theatre in town having the privilege of introducing MOBO award winning rap star AKALA. It starts at 5pm (so get there just before) and it will finish at 6pm. So just come and chill for an hour or so. I hope to see you there!
Friday 6th May I’m flying over to Germany to perform some of my poetry. Me and some local artists will also be getting the train over to Austria for a performance. I’ll keep you up to date with how the trip goes!
Today I was back in Gloucester holding a follow on session with Severn Vale’s year 10s. This time we analysed other artist’s word play and looked in to the deeper meaning behind the simple definition. They then ended the session by writing about what poetry is to them. I’m back there again on Tuesday!
A friend of mine and an up and coming video artist named Courtney Salmon has started a company named ‘CS visuals’ and he is creating an ‘I AM’ series featuring local artists. Thankfully I have been included as one of these artists and here is a quick little interview with me about what I want to do with my future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7vbcF8AH4Q&feature=channel_video_title
On bank holiday Monday, the 2nd of May, I was up bright and early for an interview at BBC WM. We we’re talking about the best ways to discipline children. If you missed it and would like to listen then please click this link. I come on after about 1 hour 15 minutes and 30 seconds of the show so just skip to that time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00gbddv/Phil_Upton__Breakfast_02_05_2011/
April this year was especially quiet what with Easter AND a royal wedding all in the same month. But here are one or two things I got up to, to keep me ticking over.
Thursday 14th I got the train down toReading for a workshop at HMP young offenders. I was a bit apprehensive before the day started but what a fantastic, eye opening experience that turned out to be. I loved every second of it and I believe the young men did too. Some seriously inspiring, touching and personal pieces came from that workshop and I hope to get the poems on my website in the future. They all had the talent and capability so I just hope they use that to help better the rest of their lives!
Friday 15th I was at the MAC for another workshop getting me ready for the ‘lit fuse’ performance the next day! On the night time I was fighting. And again, I won.
Saturday 16th I was at the MAC tying up loose ends for my performance later on in the evening. It was pretty much a full house and thank you to every body that turned up. I loved it!
Matt Windle 